Songs that were inadvertently ruined for me

I pretty much tend to ruin songs for myself on a regular basis by overplaying them. I am working on this, but it’s so hard to resist. This is a habit I picked up from my mother, who, when she liked a song, would play it over and over on the living room stereo at full volume for weeks at a time until it was never ever heard again (believe it or not, this is how I first heard “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats, and, more unfortunately, the entire Toto IV album.). You’d think I would have learned from her repeated mistakes, but I seemed to have internalized this habit and have never learned how to break it.

But I’m not talking about songs that were ruined that way because really, the list would be too long. I’m talking about songs that, for one reason or another, became associated with something that forever ruined them for me. I’m sure this has happened to you at some times. As always, I welcome your input.

“I’m Gonna Tell on You” by Jerry Jeff Walker. In the spring of 2000, just pregnant with my first daughter, I came across my then-husband’s Jerry Jeff Walker album, “Bein’ Free” and, naturally, played it every single morning before work. Unfortunately, at the same time, I was becoming more and more nauseous each day, and it wasn’t long before that album began to make me horribly nauseous, merely by association. After a while I couldn’t even get through the first song, which is this one, without wanting to die. This is a great song that I will sadly never be able to listen to again (I tried just now, but couldn’t make it all the way through).

“Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel. Maybe you don’t associate this song with someone’s ear getting sliced off, or maybe you do, but it doesn’t bother you. That’s terrific! Unfortunately I can only associate this song with that scene in Reservoir Dogs, a movie I’ve seen a number of times, but I must always leave the room when the scene starts up. I just can’t bear the way the guy begs. It’s heartbreaking.

“Drive” by R.E.M. Yeah, this one again. The first song from Automatic for the People. An entire album ruined for me by a breakup.

“Symphony 9, Op. 125″ by Ludwig Van Beethoven. I’m not sure if “ruined” is the right word for this. It’s just that it is impossible to think of this music in any way unrelated to A Clockwork Orange. The only time I went to Tanglewood this happened to be the piece they were playing and I simply could not get past the film (which I have seen, seriously, probably around 20 times). On a related note, my ring tone is the opening piece of the movie, “Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary,” which I recorded directly off my computer, and it sounds pretty much like that (which reminds me of the way I used to record songs when I was very young, from the radio onto a tape recorder, and this pleases me very much). Every single time my phone rings I am delighted.

“Jackie” by Sinead O’Connor. During a fight with my then-boyfriend (whose Jerry Jeff Walker album would one day inadvertently become synonymous with morning sickness), I actually pulled the tape right out of the cassette, ruining it forever (I was pretty handy with ruined cassette tapes and Scotch tape, actually, but this one was irreparable). If I’m not mistaken, I was defending this album against my then-boyfriend who “didn’t really like it.” The cassette was my own, which seems hilarious in retrospect. This song makes me cringe now, for various reasons.

I can’t listen to the Decemberists because someone in my family will vomit. My husband caught a stomach bug on a long car trip and I was unable to pull over in time. What cd was in? The Decemberists. Several months later we were playing it one night at home and my daughter woke up sick & couldn’t make it to the bathroom. I cannot listen to that band now without feeling queasy.